I’ll never forget a colleague’s remark about her experience with a coaching couple she had worked with. This smart, feisty woman said, “I may have just as well flushed my money down the toilet for what I got out of that program.”

She’s not alone. I’ve done it a bunch of times. And I talk to entrepreneurs every single day who tell me about things they’ve paid for, but not gotten a return.

This video addresses why you’re wasting money, how you’re doing it and first steps to stop the bleeding.

(Please forgive the video quality. I was experimenting with new technology and decided that done is better than perfect.)

p.s. Personally, I’m thankful you’re in my life. Because more than anything else I’ve ever experienced, you’ve forced me to dig “subterranean deep” to find my Truth. And having Truth on my side has made it easier to take you down the last few years. One decision at a time.

Life was a cinch. You woke up, played, ate, played some more and went to bed. The next day was the start of another new and exciting adventure.

Why can’t your business feel as fun and simple as that?

Why, even though you’re working your ass off and making investments in your growth, do you feel like you’re barely an inch closer to enjoying the results you’d hoped for by now?

Why are you working overtime instead of enjoying quality time?

In Martha Beck’s recent article in O magazine (about how to keep “flakes” on track) she said,

Remember, fun is the new work.

Wouldn’t it be AMAZING if there was a way to do business that’s actually as much fun as you imagined it would be when you started your venture?

Wouldn’t it be WONDERFUL if you found a way to grow your business, your way instead of trying to fit into someone else’s little box?

Wouldn’t it be FANTASTIC if you made money doing what you love?

Well, there is a way.

There are 5 essential keys to infuse fun, flow and profit into your service business (so you can stop working so damn hard!).

Design your business, your way. Do not mimic others thinking it’ll work for you. It won’t.

Develop your voice and point of view so that you’re considered a thought leader by peers and clients. Be the voice, not the echo.

Commit to your primary and most effective marketing strategy. Too many entrepreneurs hide behind email and social media but don’t have a strategy that really, truly works and is a reflection of 1 & 2.

Do whatever it takes to love selling your services. Find an approach that feels true to you and it’ll change your life in ways you can’t even imagine.

Prioritize all of your time, money and mindset around the first 4 pointers. Everything else is extraneous.

Knowing how to do this will help you stop working overtime. Do more of the stuff you like and less of the stuff you don’t. And actually have FUN in your business!

And isn’t the idea to biz happier, not harder?!

If you’re not fully feeling the fun in your business, join me for a webinar next week where I’ll go deeper into each of these five essential keys to infuse fun, flow and profit into your service business (so you can stop working so damn hard!).

Do you ever wonder, despite all of your hard work, why you don’t seem to get what you want?

And you work so damn hard to make things happen, too!

My TUT.com from last Thursday morning said:

Those folks who meet with life success and then tell the world it was due to their hard work, really make my job challenging. They almost NEVER work harder than others. They don’t even work smarter than others.

They simply leveraged the magic by thinking, speaking, and acting in line with what they wanted.

But, oh, no, they have to go out and tell impressionable minds that it was their hard work, and so, for all who listen and nod, it becomes hard work.”

I’ll admit I’ve done more than my share of overcomplicating, sweating and making things hard.

In hindsight, it’s because I didn’t know what I wanted. I knew what I was supposed to want. I knew what other people wanted. I knew what my guru coaches told me to want. But frankly, I didn’t truly have it figured out for myself.

Because I didn’t have a way to give shape to what I wanted.

After years of making a lot of bad decisions and desperate choices, I created one. And today, this is the very first thing I do with my private clients, my Mighties in Evolve Accelerator, and even my Art of the Ask™ students.

So let’s not make this hard work. Let’s walk through my super simple approach right now. (Grab my 4D cheat sheet here if you’d like to follow along.)

The first key here is to DECLARE what you want your business to do for you.

You’ve heard the saying, “where there’s a will there’s a way”, so I created the W.I.L.L. Formula™ to help you declare what you want:

Why – why do you do what you do?

Income – what level of income do you require? (there are 3 levels: need, want, fantasy)

Lifestyle – what do you want to spend your time doing? who do you want to spend it with? where do you want to be doing it?

Legacy – what do you want to leave behind? how do you want to be remembered?

Today, I know what I want and it makes all the difference! Here are the cliff notes of my personal W.I.L.L.:

I want women to believe in themselves more than they presently do… so that they no longer hold themselves back from getting what they truly want and deserve from life.

I want to be free of the last of my debt from my guru worship days… (can you relate?!) without interfering with what I want to create for my future. In other words, I’m still investing in my biz.

I want to work “easeful” hours so that my lifestyle includes plenty of time for me (no alarm, exercise, dating), my friends and my family. I want to enjoy all (or at least as much as possible) that NYC has to offer.

And I want to leave a legacy of having empowered and equipped women entrepreneurs with the know-how to get what THEY want, by running businesses that are fun and make her life and biz happier.

Once you’re clear on what you want your business to do for you, your next step is to DEFINE what you want your business to do for others.

From there, you’re able to DESIGN your business to support the first two things. This involves packaging and pricing your services (also referred to as your business model) so that your business is set up to give you AND your clients what they want.

(Too often it’s done the other way around and then life gets out of whack. You’re working ’til 2am and never have time w/your family.)

And then you DO it. Because now you have a new clarity that shapes your thinking, speaking and acting in line with getting what you want. It all becomes so much easier when those first three steps are clear.

And the beauty of having this “container” of the 4Ds is that it allows you to evolve and shift and adapt your business, as YOU evolve and shift and adapt.